strange pppoe/adsl issues

[Fargo Holiday]

unfortunately i wasn't terribly involved with anything but customer
site hardware, though i do recall that we used redback equipment at
the isp end. actual line vendors and switching varied depending on the
region. just as Mark stated we, eventually, switched over to customer
hardware with pppoe solutions embedded to eliminate the thousands of
man hours required to walk users through trying different setups until
one meshed with their system, the telco, and our stuff.

could it be something with the way that the pppoe client
authenticates, perhaps authentication is expected at regular intervals
and when that dosen't happen it denies traffic? i mean, pppoe is
fairly standardized from what i understand, much like ethernet over
atm, but i could see where different clients might have different
ideas about when to send authentication.

where i worked we could view connection logs for specific users,
perhaps you could get someone to send you a log with one of the setups
that work, say XP, that shows what was transpiring for a specific
interval, then get a log of what happens when your FreeBSD setup is
connected until it drops, then compare the two. just a thought.

sadly i'm several years out of DSL support, so i don't recall a lot of
specifics. ok, i'm not really all that sad to be away from a phone
support position, but you understand.

in any case, good night, and i really hope someone can resolve the issue.